


Lunch Date

by lady_mab



Series: That Good Good HP AU [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:12:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_mab/pseuds/lady_mab
Summary: Barry doesn't really like attracting the attention of the Taaco twins, but Lup singles him out anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

The Taaco twins were famous throughout the halls of the school. 

Or perhaps _infamous_ was a better word. 

Barry didn’t know much about them except that they were those powerful and beautiful people. Ones who thrived off natural talent as much as they did attention. 

The fact that they were in two separate houses made the classrooms they shared even more dangerous. Taako in greens and silvers, Lup in red and golds, dishing out cool looks and smiles that might be considered leers to their fellow students. 

They fascinated Barry, in the way that a Muggle scientist might like to watch a predator from a distance. Look, but don’t touch. Don’t draw attention. 

That was one of his personal rules. His personal rules also included ‘stay on the other side of the library’, ‘always do homework as quickly as possible’, ‘avoid confrontation with students bigger or louder or stronger than him’, and ‘never make eye contact with either Taaco twin’. 

The last one came after Lup caught him looking one day across the Great Hall. She had glanced up from among the cluster of her and Taako’s friends. Eyes immediately settled on his -- as if, he allowed himself to think for one brief butterflies-in-the-stomach moment, she had been planning on looking at him while his attention was diverted. 

To his confusion, she smiled. Not a teasing one that he normally saw aimed at others. This one was soft, warm, and Barry felt the heat flood his cheeks. But then her brother looked up and noticed. 

In a second, her smile shifted, teasing and indifferent, and the moment of buoyancy was immediately traded for stones dragging him down. The twins raised a hand and waved at him in sync. Instead of returning the gesture, he slammed his books shut and scooped them up under his arm. 

Breakfast be damned. 

He didn’t flee, but he certainly didn’t look back. 

It seemed, after that moment in the Great Hall, Barry saw Lup wherever he went. On one hand, it was hard not to notice her. Her house colors brought out a vibrancy in her personal bearing that seemed absent from Taako’s. She never called out to him, and he wrote this off as being well outside her circles, but she was always there. 

Just in the corner of his eyes. Beautiful, powerful, _distracting_. 

She blazed her way through classes in the same way that she seemed to blaze through everything -- sometimes literally, much to the chagrin of every staff member. Raw talent was more her thing, and studying was his. 

But there she always was. 

On the day all of his rules were broken at once, Lup appeared out of seemingly nowhere and blocked his path. 

The worst part about this situation was that, despite being in an open hallway, he felt backed into a corner. She stood with her hands on her hips, taking up the entire space -- his entire field of vision. Warmth radiated off of her, despite the chill of the late autumn afternoon. Or perhaps that was just his natural reaction to being near her, embarrassment at the memory of the way she had caught him staring replacing the chill of fear at being a target of whatever harassment she might dole out. 

“Hey, nerd,” she said. 

Barry pushed his glasses up his nose and regretted the action an instant later as her eyes lit up with amusement. “Do you mind?” He gestured with the books and parchments in his arm and nodded at the hall behind her. 

“Now now, I just want to talk.” Still, Lup relented by holding up her hands as if to show she was unarmed and let them drop to her sides. As if he didn’t immediately spot the wand tucked into her waistband as her robes billowed with her movements. “I feel like you’ve been avoiding me.” 

His brows furrowed. “I don’t have a reason to be in your path to begin with.” Ironically, with her standing directly in his. 

“We have classes together.” 

“Do we?” he asked, feigning ignorance. “I never noticed.” 

“C’mon, nerd, we both know that isn’t true.” She smiled, and to his surprise, it was the same one she first gave him in the Great Hall: soft and warm. 

“It’s _Barry_.” 

“Barold--” 

“Just Barry.” 

She waved a hand to dismiss the subject. “Alright.” 

He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and allowed himself to ask, “What do you need, Lup?” 

“I just wanted to talk.” Her head tilted to the side, but her eyes didn’t leave his. “You are always sitting by yourself.” 

His stomach did a funny little thing that he had a hard time interpreting, so he decided to focus on her words instead. “Not always.” 

Lup held up a hand and started to tick off her fingers. “In the Great Hall. In the library. By the lake. Here.” 

Barry didn’t let himself consider how she noticed this. “You’re here.” 

“Yes.” 

For a moment, she let that word hover in the air, waiting for him to pick up on the cue that he refused to acknowledge. 

When he remained silent for too long for her liking, Lup’s shoulders slumped and her expression shifted to a frustrated fondness. “Sit with us at lunch tomorrow.” 

_Us_ was a dangerous word. _Us_ included her and Taako. 

He paled and clutched his books to his chest. “Your brother--” 

Lup let out a long sigh and rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about Taako.” 

“I don’t think he likes me.” 

“Taako doesn’t like anyone by default, so you have to give him a chance to warm up to you.” 

Barry avoided her gaze, staring instead out the stone archway to focus on anything else. 

This meant, however, that he didn’t notice her step up to him until it was too late. She leaned in, placed one finger to his chin, and guided his attention back to her. “Then let _me_ sit with _you_ at lunch tomorrow.” 

His brain fizzled to a stop and the only sound he could muster was a stuttered, “Uhhh--” 

She took that as her answer and smiled again. “Good. Save me a seat between all of your books, nerd.” Lup waggled her fingers in a parting wave and sauntered past him. 

By the time his head finally kicked back into working order and he whirled around, she had already turned a corner and was out of sight. “Yeah,” he answered. “Tomorrow. Sounds good.”


	2. Chapter 2

Barry never really _meant_ to skip breakfast. It just happened sometimes, as he found himself too caught up with a paper for class or an interesting book or one of his side projects. Sometimes he forgot to sleep or eat or even go to class. 

Today was a day that he forgot to brush his hair on top of the usual things. 

He had been so engrossed in a text about the Ogre conflict on the Bavarian-Austrian border that suddenly it was morning and the bell rang to signal the end of the first class and he knew that today is going to be a _very bad day_. 

At least he made it to his second two classes. He even dropped back by the class he missed to turn in his essay and apologize to his professor. His feet carried him automatically to the Great Hall when he suddenly remembered. 

Lup wanted to eat lunch with him. 

Barry dismissed this moment of panic with a very rational thought: she was clearly teasing him. This released him from the momentary grip of terror and he could resume his walk. 

Three steps later, he froze again. Because what if she _wasn’t_? What if she actually wanted to sit with him?

His stomach tripped and stumbled as he stood in the middle of the hall. Even at this distance, he could hear the chattering of other students as they ate lunch. Would she even be there? Did he want her to be there? 

The larger part of him wanted to avoid any conflict whatsoever and go sit out by the lake and… honestly, probably not do homework. It was a nice day for this late in the year, and even he knew how to appreciate a break. But he received a discontented grumble from his gut at having skipped breakfast and Barry swallowed his doubts. 

He was not afraid of her. 

(He was afraid of acting like a fool in front of her but that was something else completely.) 

So he took a deep breath, clutched his bag just a little bit tighter, and made his way into the Great Hall. 

The chatter didn’t slow a bit at his entrance, like a small voice thought it might, so he carried on to his usual spot on one of the far tables. Grabbed some food, propped up his book, and resumed the chapter he left off on. 

Four pages in and half a forgotten apple later, a loud noise clanked down onto the table and a whispered swear got him to look up. Thankfully, he hadn’t taken a bite of the apple in some time because his jaw hung open and it would have just been terribly unflattering. 

Lup struggled beneath an overly laden plate and her bag, but she managed to unburden herself with only a little effort.

“Oh,” Barry said, confused. 

“Oh?” Lup echoed, arching an eyebrow. 

“You actually came.” 

She grinned and dropped down onto the bench across from him. “‘Course I did, nerd. I said I wanted to.” 

“Yes, but I couldn’t figure out the reason why.” 

Lup’s expression was a mix of amusement and a hint of curiosity. “Really? Nowhere in that big Ravenclaw brain of yours could you think of a decent reason?” 

Barry started to say something, but he spotted Taako out of the corner of his eye. The Slytherin appeared mildly annoyed, but that was his default expression. When he caught Barry’s eye, there was no teasing grin, or malicious look. There was simply something resembling feigned indifference before he turned away. 

“Well, my most reasonable explanation was that you weren’t going to sit here.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and considered the half-eaten apple and bread roll on his plate. “The second was that you are doing this just to make fun of me.” 

She propped her chin up in one hand, watching him as he spoke and toying with a piece of chicken. When he pulled his attention up to her, he was surprised to see that she looked disappointed. “Is that really what you think of me?” 

Something in his chest went cold. “I--” 

Lup shook her head and managed a smile, but he didn’t like the way that it sat on her face. “I suppose that’s only fair. We haven’t… _I_ haven’t… made much of an effort to prove people wrong when they talk about me like that. Taako, too, but I think he thrives off of that sort of response.” 

Barry forced out a sound that was close to a laugh. “That’s not what I mean.” 

Her eyebrow quirked. 

“You’re so…” He struggled for the words he wanted to use, embarrassment warring with the need to clarify. The smile she wore doesn’t suit her, and it was because of his poor choice of words. “You’re so much cooler than I am. I shouldn’t even register on your radar.” 

The eyebrow arched higher. 

“I mean, look at us.” He cast his glance around, as if expecting people to be staring. 

No one was, which in itself was sort of odd. 

Barry carried on anyway. “You’re very clever and loyal, great at duels. Popular, charming, and--” He caught himself before he could say _way out of my league_. Because that was not what this was about. “Me, I’m just--” 

“Fucking brilliant, kind and earnest, and great at magical theory,” Lup said, all without batting an eye. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, just because I haven’t said anything until now.” 

A strangled half-sound tumbled from his mouth, but otherwise, he couldn’t think of anything to say. Not with her challenging smirk daring him to refute what she just said. 

“Don’t sell yourself short, and maybe you won’t be so surprised next time someone compliments you.” Lup took some of the food from her plate and dumped it onto his. “Now are we going to eat lunch, or are you going to sit there looking like a boggart just revealed to you that your worst fear was your Great Aunt Mildred in her undies?”

It took a moment to shake himself out of his thoughts, but Barry closed his book and set it aside. “Yeah…” he muttered, glancing down at the plate now ladened with far more food than he normally took. “I guess… yeah.” 

She smiled, and that simultaneously seemed to throw him completely off balance and put everything back in order.


End file.
